My biggest fear as a businesswoman and professional blogger is that I do not understand my readers well enough. Are my own experiences and opinions crowding out out posts from which you would benefit? Is my version of being a woman, of being a parent, of being a writer, of being (fill in the blank) blinding me to other points of view? Other tips I should mention? Other articles I should write?
Whenever I feel this way, I like to buy ten wildly different magazines and tear out the ads, the cover pages, the “marketplace” pages, and the tables of contents. I then assemble this mass (and it is a mass) of papers on my kitchen table, grab a nice pen and a blank sheet of paper, and start writing words. (I got this tip from the biggest pottymouth on the Internet, but that’s another story).
I write phrases. I write words that stick out at me. I try to picture the men and women in those magazine offices and advertising agencies and think – what made them write this? What makes this idea appealing to them? What interactions did they have that made them think other people would want to read this?
Inevitably, I have to quickly move past the obvious ones: all women, apparently, want younger looking skin, shinier hair, and poutier lips (or else, someone wants us to have these things, I can’t tell which it is). Also, we all want to be thinner while eating comfort foods, indulging in desserts, and making natural, delicious meals in less than 30 minutes and for under ten dollars (well, duh).
The most amusing parts to read are about aspects of life to which I really have never given much thought. One lotion ad promised to help my “elbows find happiness.” A purse ad clarified for me that “love” now has “a color and a name.” Really? I did not know that. Well, if love has a name and my elbows are happy, who cares about managing a business, growing a marriage, raising kids, or rebalancing an investment portfolio?
But then, finally, I get to the good stuff. The article about how we all want to be unique right next to advertisement emphasizing that we are not the only ones going through something. The essay on how to accept ourselves followed by “quick tips” on how to improve ourselves. These contradictory needs and impulses are part of what make us so complex and so interesting, and magazines inevitably reflect that mix, although I suspect they do not always realize they are doing so.
And nowhere do we feel these contradictions more than in pregnancy and parenting.
EHParenting’s focus is on matching the ambitions of the productivity, efficiency, life-hacking, get-things-done movement with the reality of making a new person and raising that person. It is one thing to organize your closet. It is another thing entirely to organize a toddler.
But my most recent magazine destruction spree reminded me that EHParenting’s readers are also dealing with the contradictory nature of parenthood: the fact that some things should not be organized and made productive. Some things should just be experienced. Survived. Endured. Enjoyed.
My instincts were telling me I was missing something, and they were right. Sometimes we strive to get things done; sometimes we deliberately let them fall apart. In the end, balance is what people are really interested in. Well, balance, and, apparently, happy elbows.
At EHParenting, we can’t do much about your elbows, but we’ll give balance our best shot.
Thanks for being a part of our world,
Amanda
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I can understand your situation a lot, I am also in a same situation as you are in!